Polly and Her Pals — July 17, 1922

Cliff Sterrett's four-panel daily finds a small, cocky man fishing on posted private property. Confronted by a rotund figure who declares himself proprietor and boasts of catching sixty bass there the day before, the fisherman pauses — then delivers the punchline: 'I'm the biggest liar you ever see, son.' Sterrett draws in a lively, rubbery style, all crosshatching and expressive silhouettes, with speech balloons driving the comic rhythm panel to panel. *Polly and Her Pals*, launched in 1912, ran for decades in Hearst syndication and was among the strips whose page layouts, recurring characters, and balloon conventions directly shaped the visual language that comic books would inherit and codify through the 1930s.